“To warn you,” she said. “To try to save your life.”
I laughed, I’m sure rather bitterly. The life in question didn’t seem like an important commodity at that moment. “Some demon you are.”
“I didn’t say I don’t care about you at all.” For a moment she had to look away, and I had a stupid hope that I had broken through somehow, that she was going to tell me that all the rest of what she’d said had been another lie. But when she turned back to me her face was horribly, horribly composed again. “Of course I do, in my own way. And I don’t want anything to happen to you-at least, not because of me.” She sat up and gathered her clothes, then slid off the bed and began to pick up her shoes and the rest of what had fallen, rewinding the spool of our sex, making it as though it had never happened. She was still half-naked, and despite my guts roiling and my head pounding, the sight of her bending over to get her coat was too much for me. I tried to put my arms around her but she violently yanked herself away from me.
“No! Don’t! I can’t! I can’t do that again.” She backed away, then after staring me down for a moment, stepped into her panties and began slowly putting herself back together. Every glimpse of flesh made my chest ache, especially when she buttoned up her shirt and the main expanse of her pale skin disappeared like the sun going behind clouds.
“Now,” she said when she was dressed, “we can argue some more or you can listen to me.” She looked at her watch. “We don’t have much time before I have to go.”
“With him?”
“Argue or listen?”
I closed my mouth.
“Eligor’s ending the conference early,” she said. “I heard him talking to one of his subordinates. Tonight, at midnight.”
“What are you talking about? He doesn’t have the power to do that even if it is his hotel This is a goddamn summit conference! He’s outranked by a bunch of guys on his own side, let alone what my side would think about it. You’re wrong, Caz. It’s not going to happen.”
“I heard what I heard,” she said, cool as a marble fountain. “And if he’s doing it, it’s probably to catch you by surprise, Bobby. He told me he wouldn’t…he said he wasn’t interested in you anymore, but we all know what his word’s worth.”
“Hold on. He told you he wouldn’t go after me anymore? Is that what you were going to say? Why would he say that? What did you tell him? Or what did you give him…?”
“Now you’re arguing,” she said.
“Fuck it, that’s not fair…” I began.
“But there’s more!” shouted the audience along with the Australian television huckster. He continued on, whipping them into a frenzy. “That’s right! For this one low price you can get two Robo-Chops, plus two shredder blades, two deli slicers, and this beautiful serving plate!” The informercial audience sounded like they were nearing the climax of a particularly noisy orgy, or else, perhaps, watching the Christians being delivered to the arena sand to meet the maneaters. I stalked to the television to turn it off, then began looking around on the floor next to the bed for the remote.
The door thumped closed.
I ran after her, snagging myself on some trailing bedclothes. When I had untangled my legs and got the door open, Caz had already vanished around the corner of the corridor, no doubt heading for the elevator. I could hear other voices in the hall and hesitated, balancing my need to catch her with my desire not to be running around Eligor’s hotel with my dick dangling and no gun. Caution won out, but only barely. I threw on my pants and pulled my jacket on over my bare chest, shoved the automatic into my pocket, and pushed my feet into my shoes without untying them before I hurried down the hall.
Three minor angels were having a rare old time trying to open the door to their room. They had clearly been tasting the unfamiliar freedoms of mortal bodies, especially the sort that came from fermented grain, but I still didn’t want to make a spectacle of myself chasing down the corridor after a female demon who had probably just passed them-something that might pierce the haze enough to be remembered tomorrow. I manufactured a little you-ought-to-know-better smile as I walked by, sending them into gusts of embarrassed laughter, then I moved briskly toward the elevator.
Could she be right somehow? Did Eligor, maybe with Caym’s help, have the clout to shut down the conference? And would he really do it just to get a crack at me?
He thinks I tricked him, I realized. He thinks I tricked him about the feather, not to mention he obviously knows there’s something between me and Caz, whether she told him about us or not. A grand duke of Hell might or might not have ordinary kinds of sexual jealousy, but they all had a very keen sense of possession, and I’m not talking about The Exorcist variety. Yeah, he might just be that unhappy with me.
But whatever Caz thought, there was no way Eligor could manage to end the summit in the middle of the night as far as I could see. It was past eleven. What was he going to do, call up Karael and suggest sending everybody home and postponing the rest of the joint powers’ little circle jerk? The higher angels hate putting on human form in the first place, hate leaving Heaven; I could just imagine how that proposal would go over with Karael.
When I reached the elevators I could see that the one Caz must be in had already reached the second floor. I jumped into one of the others, gambling that she was going all the way down, figuring that if she didn’t I could come back up from the lobby and search the lower floors. When the door pinged open, I pushed out past a group of snickering, drunken demons and hurried across the lobby but saw no sign of her anywhere, so I headed for the main entrance. I almost smashed through the nearest glass door when it didn’t open fast enough because I’d spotted her long legs walking away from valet parking along the front of the hotel, toward the parking lot. None of the valets or visitors seemed to be paying much attention, so I sprinted after her.
I caught her just at the edge of the building where she had stopped as if to wait for someone. I was pretty sure that someone wasn’t me. The smell of the bay was strong, and I could hear seagulls keening. I hadn’t been outside since I’d checked in. I’d almost forgotten we were out at Sand Point.
When she saw it was me, her whole body slumped like she’d been shot, but she straightened up again and stepped away from me as I approached. My coat was half-buttoned over my shirtless chest, my shoes only barely on my feet. I must have looked like a lovesick hobo.
“Now what?” There was enough chill in her words to make goose bumps.
“I don’t believe you’re doing what you want to do,” I said.
“You don’t know anything about what I want, Bobby. You only think you know. I’m not who you think I am.” She said it with the patience of a weary parent dealing with her spoiled child. “I’m a million times worse than you can imagine. I’ve been in Hell for centuries.” She laughed. It was painful to hear. “They broke me a long time ago. I’m a lifer.”
“Bullshit. You wouldn’t have-”
“Wouldn’t have what? Fucked you? Do you think that makes you unique? Grow up, Dollar!” She looked over her shoulder as a big, black car came sliding up from the front of the hotel. “Oh, shit.”
She grabbed me then and pushed me back into the shadows of the building, but the car just eased up and settled to a stop at the edge of the sidewalk less than ten yards away. I could see a pale-haired silhouette in the front seat that had to be Eligor.